Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Muslim attitudes *

After speaking with more than 1,000 American Muslims, the venerable Pew Research Center reported today that Muslims are generally happy in the United States and aren't hung up with the issues that have caused the global "clash of civilizations."

This, though, was a startling discovery:

Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries. However, there is somewhat more acceptance of Islamic extremism in some segments of the U.S. Muslim public than others. Fewer native-born African American Muslims than others completely condemn al Qaeda. In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified. Nonetheless, absolute levels of support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans are quite low, especially when compared with Muslims around the world.